Converting SE databases to PE

Older versions of GoldMine would let you access SQL and dBase tables at the same time, and so you could pick which ones you wanted to rehost, and when. PE doesn’t let you open dBase contact sets directly, and so it’s not so obvious how to get at them to rehost them.

The users table is now held in SQL/Firebird as well and so you may also need to rehost this.

1. Use the Alias Manager (Tools/Databases/Alias Manager) to create a new database in SQL or Firebird. This will create space for your data, but at this stage it’s empty.

2. Choose ‘Copy data from 6.x dBase tables’. You can also elect to rehost just selected tables (which you will choose later). Click next.

3. This next page is a bit odd. You must specify source locations for the contact set, the gmbase files and the users file even if you only want to rehost just one element (or even just one table). Do so, and click next.

4. If you specified that you want to select individual tables the choices are now presented to you. The users table is available if you chose to rehost gmbase in step 2. Click next.

5. Enter a Contact Set Code. This is only used for synchronisation but is a required field. It can be anything you like as long as it’s not the same as that for another contact set. It’s a bit bonkers but it will still ask you for a contact set code even if you are just rehosting gmbase data and are not rehosting a contact set at all. Click next.